Bergamo wants to rise again with a Caravaggio. The musicians are on loan from the Metropolitan in New York.

Bergamo wants to rise again from the blow of the coronavirus through culture, looking positively to the future. It is in this sense that a collaboration with the Metropolitan in New York, another city heavily scarred by the Covid-19 epidemic, has come about: the American museum has loaned theCarrara Academy of Bergamo a masterpiece by Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi; Milan, 1571 - Porto Ercole, 1610), The Musicians, on display in the Orobic museum from May 22 to August 31. The work thus marks an opportunity for the institution to reopen its doors to its public.

The Musicians was executed by Caravaggio in Rome in the spring of 1597: the commissioner was the powerful Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, protector of the young artist who had arrived in the capital, and a great lover of music. The commission had come about precisely as part of the musical entertainments Del Monte hosted at his residence in Palazzo Madama. The protagonists, three young men in old-fashioned dress, play a piece of music that has recently been identified: it is a six-voice madrigal by the Neapolitan musician Pompeo Stabile, another artist who was part of the cardinal’sentourage. The verses are instead by Jacopo Sannazzaro and speak of the fall of Icarus: “Ben può di sua ruina esser contento; / s’al ciel volando a guisa di colomba, / per troppo ardir fu / esanimato e spento: / ed ora del suo nome tutto rimbomba / un mar così spazïoso, un elemento: / chi ebbe al mondo mai così larga tomba?” The work was to be included as part of the Titian and Caravaggio exhibition in Peterzano, Titian’s pupil and Caravaggio’s master, which was closed after just three weeks of reopening due to the Covid-19 emergency (it will not be extended). In the painting, Caravaggio follows precisely a pattern that he had known through Peterzano, in whose production figures paintings on the same subject. A scheme that also included the inclusion of the figure of the god Cupid (he is the first on the left, recognizable by his wings), next to whom a self-portrait of Caravaggio was wanted to be recognized, in the young man playing the cornet.

“This is not an easy time for culture either,” says Maria Cristina Rodeschini, director of the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo. "As we think about how to redesign our future, museums are doing their part, for the social function that is theirs, by making themselves available to the community. The Carrara is preparing to do so, in continuity with its own origins and history. To exhibit the work of a great Italian artist, such as Caravaggio, popular throughout the world for his ability to involve and conquer, yesterday as today, is to call attention to the importance of the role of culture through which to recognize one’s identity, overcome difficulties and reopen to the world. In the painting, three young people are engaged in musical entertainment (among them the self-portrait painter) according to a widespread practice and here depicted in a scene of decided modernity with that figure who has his back to us and whose features we intuit through the barely hinted at profile. Sophisticated image, but also rich in elements that draw on reality, an announcement of one of the artist’s most original fields of investigation. The work, now housed in the most important museum in the United States, testifies to the solid alliance between Carrara and the Metropolitan Museum and the solidarity that unites Bergamo and New York at this time, cities severely tested by the health emergency. The musicians concluded the itinerary of the exhibition Titian and Caravaggio in Peterzano, pupil of Titian and master of Caravaggio, which was blacked out after just three weeks of opening. Carrara is restarting with its collections and this act of generosity by the American museum, which indulged the desire to display this early Caravaggio painting in the heart of the picture gallery. Special thanks to Director Max Hollein and Keith Christiansen, Chairman of the Department of European Paintings The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York."

“It was a pleasure for us at the Metropolitan Museum,” says Keith Christiansen, Chairman of the Department of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, "to have been able to lend Caravaggio’s The Musicians of Caravaggio to the Carrara Academy. We have a long-standing relationship with this important institution in Bergamo, which houses one of the most valuable collections in Italy. Lerelations between the Metropolitan Museum and Accademia Carrara have been both institutional and personal over time, ranging from exhibition design to research. Thanks to Accademia Carrara’s curatorial expertise and the support of Banca Popolare di Bergamo, in 2000 we were able to present The still life of Evaristo Baschenis: the music of silence to the American public, and in 2012 we hosted an exhibition highlighting a part of the collection’s masterpieces. What the Metropolitan Museum and Accademia Carrara have in common is a commitment to fostering appreciation for the still little-studied field of paintings from northern Italy, the cradle of Caravaggio’s revolutionary art. This is why we have been so keen to lend The Musicians on the occasion of the exhibition dedicated to Caravaggio’s master, Simone Peterzano, an exhibition that was a victim of the pandemic. And we look forward to continuing to collaborate together."

The work can be seen during museum opening hours. For all info visit the Accademia Carrara’s official website.

Image: Caravaggio, The Musicians (1597; oil on canvas, 87.9 × 115.9 cm; New York, Metropolitan Museum)

Bergamo wants to rise again with a Caravaggio. The musicians are on loan from the Metropolitan in New York.

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